“Is it a good surprise?”, I asked.

“Depends”, was the answer.

“Do I get more clues?”, I asked.

“It’s white, and textured and not a cat” was the reply.

Shortly after, I was picked up from work and I got to see my surprise – it was a brand new Kobo eReader from Borders book store! Here’s a brief initial review of the Kobo eReader, based upon my short use of it.

About the Kobo

The Kobo eReader is an ebook reading device based on E Ink technology. The thing to note is that this is an eReader – it’s not an iPad. It does one thing – display books – and it does it well.

Things I like

• The stylish and clean design
• The lovely quilted backing – it stops the eReader from slipping from your hands
• It’s lightweight at 221 grams and fits easily in my hands
• Cheap – at $199 at Borders book stores, it’s one of the most affordable eReaders around
• It comes preloaded with a hundred books and holds up to 1000 books (more if you use an SD card)
• You don’t need any additional devices or chargers to charger this – just plug it into a USB port with a standard mini USB cable
• It supports open formats – ePub! It also takes PDF and Adobe DRM.
• I can drag and drop books straight onto the Kobo once it’s plugged into my computer (so quick and easy)
• It retains the cover of the book when the device is off (just like a real book!)
• The D-pad is located on the right hand side, similar position to where you expect to turn a page

Things I don’t like

• It takes a while to power on
• It takes a while to load each book
• When the Kobo is plugged into my computer, I can’t use the eReader at all
• There are very slight delays when ‘turning’ pages (I don’t think this is the fault of the Kobo, as it’s likely due to electronic paper technology)
• I had some issues with the way I had to navigate the PDFs I transferred to the Kobo but I need to do more experimentation to determine if it’s the source PDF or whether it’s the Kobo’s interpretation of the PDF

Things to note

It doesn’t come with 3G or Wi-Fi but that hasn’t been a problem for me so far.

The battery life is supposed to last up to two weeks (I haven’t had it long enough to test this).

eBooks from Borders Australia look fairly affordable. Take one of my favourite books – Pride And Prejudice And Zombies – the ebook is currently available for $7.95 (Australian dollars).

The verdict

On the whole, it’s a good affordable device, with a few minor quibbles. It supports open standards and books purchased can be read on other devices that have the Kobo mobile app. Is it the Kindle Killer? Only time can tell, but it looks like a real contender. I’m liking it so far.

Here’s a list of non-religious charitable organisations in Canberra that are happy to accept clothing, books and related items. Please feel free to suggest other Canberra based organisations.

• The National Brain Injury Foundation (NBIF) is one of our personal favourites. A shop front is located on Genge Street, in the Griffin Centre. You can support them by purchasing items from the shop front or dropping off a range of items in good condition (we’ve dropped off clothes and household bric-a-brac).
• Lifeline accepts books, magazines, DVD’s, Videos, CDs, computer software, and some Bric-a-Brac. They hold the very excellent Book Fair three times a year in Canberra. For more information about donating items, read Ways You Can Help or drop items off at 66 Heffernan St, Mitchell and all Video Ezy Stores.
• The Smith Family has various donation bins around Canberra. They accept clothing, footwear, blankets and linen only.

As always, please check with individual charities for up-to-date information. Please DO NOT DUMP items outside closed shop fronts or charity bins. It costs charities large amounts of money to clear items that get left out in the open plus it can be a fire hazard. It’s extremely frustrating to see items and even rubbish (including non-working electrical and computer items) dumped next to charity bins. If it’s broken and you don’t want it, neither does the charity!

Other resources:

• Giving unwanted goods to charity – list from the ACT government
• Yoink! – While Yoink! isn’t a charity, it’s a great way to recycle items that you don’t need. I’ve used it numerous times to get rid of unwanted (but functional) items. Plus, it’s been designed and developed here in Canberra!

PS: I wish the Red Cross, RSPCA and Koomarri had store fronts in Canberra!

This year, I’ve decided to write about someone who is relatively unknown in the broader web community but is very knowledgeable in the accessibility field. She would never blow her own horn, which means that only those of us who have had the pleasure of working with her knows how good she is. She’s a shy and quiet type, and is truly one of the nicest and most generous person I know. She has been working in the tech and user experience field for a while. She’s smart, passionate and she knows her accessibility stuff.

I want you to meet my friend and colleague, Kim Chatterjee. What I love about Kim is her willingness to share her knowledge and time to help everyone, even if it means very little sleep for her! She has a detailed understanding of accessibility and has spent quite a few years doing some cool accessibility work in Government. She’s also really great at communicating complex concepts through interesting and lovely visuals. She’s really humble about her achievements so if you do get to meet her, she won’t tell you how good she is but if you get to chat to her, you’ll soon realise the depth and breadth of her accessibility knowledge.

While others are out and about talking the talk, Kim is busy with the actual doing. She’s helped to inspire a number of people about accessibility, who have now gone on into other organisations either carrying a passion for accessibility or having an increased awareness of accessibility. Now that’s inspirational.

The highly anticipated BarCampCanberra event happened yesterday, with a large gathering of smart and passionate folks from around Canberra, Yass, Wollongong and Sydney discussing interesting topics such as Government 2.0, social innovation, collaboration, typography, hackerspaces and more.

For those unfamiliar with the BarCamp concept:

BarCampCanberra is a free-to-attend community-run conference where anyone can come and watch, participate or present on anything they are passionate about – either something interesting they’ve been working on, an idea they’d like to present or to brainstorm the solution to a problem with a bunch of like-minded smart people

We had over 150 people registered for the event, 46 pizzas consumed, 72 bottles of water drunk (plus the additional cups and water containers) and 39 sessions including a series of 5 minute lighting talks (I love the 5 minute lighting talk format).

The event was tweeted, flickred, livestreamed and Googled waved. We were even covered in the Canberra Times (page 8 of the Sunday 7th February newspaper).

Some of my favourite quotes about BarCampCanberra comes from @dekrazee1:

Brain is still abuzz from #bcc2010. BarCamp is the techy equivalent of a day spa. Energising and invigorating. #I<3BarCamp

@ozdj:

@RazChorev Yep. Sound ROI. That $50 of fuel (and ~8hrs of travel time) got me about $500 worth of education today. #bcc2010

Key themes

The key themes from BarCampCanberra #3 were social innovation (particularly around the grass roots level), government engagement and activity (engagement and activity is not the same thing) and taking action after conversation.

My presentation

I was too busy running between rooms to actually sit down and listen to the presentations in full, particularly for the first half of the day. I manage to present in the afternoon on a number of topics that’s important to me: critical thinking, skepticism and quirkology.

I also manage to catch the Make Hack Void presentation (@evildeece, @__dev_dsp, @_xmd_), @evildeece ACT solar tariff, Bob Edward’s I have no Friends on Facebook presentation and all of the lightning talks in the afternoon. @sabman’s Mapping of Haiti presentation was a particular stand out.

Thanks

Many thanks to all the wonderful presenters who took the time and effort to share their knowledge. I know that it takes a lot to get up there and talk or run a discussion group, even in this type of informal setting. It was my husband’s first time getting up and talking in front of such a crowd and I’m pleased that first time presenters are able to present in a non-threatening environment.

Thanks to our wonderful sponsors: Powerhouse Museum, Microsoft, Crystal Approach, Schmooze, SassySEO.com and TheRohans.com.

Thanks to my co-unorganisers: @NathanaelB, @RohanM, @CraigThomler, @lozz, @RaeBuerckner, @Klepas and @Caronne (who couldn’t make it, but had her partner drive all the way to the venue with much needed powerboards and extension cables!). Thanks also to the wonderful Gavin (@wingedmonkeyboy) who was busy running between all three rooms to get photos of the crowds and the presenters.

Thanks to the ANU and Bob Edwards for providing the venue and wireless.

Clever and useful stuff

• Check out the presentations – BarCamp Canberra #3 on slideshare
• Check out the photos tagged #bcc2010 – Barcamp Canberra #3 photos on flickr
• See who registered – BarCamp Canberra #3 on Eventbrite
• Read the twitter stream
• We made it into the Canberra times!
• Check out the tweeting stats for the event
• @laurentlefort’s Twitter list of BCC2010 attendees

Update: Many thanks to Geoff from @SubwayBelconnen who provided the salads and subs at BarCampCanberra!

The challenge is that UX is a highly multi-disciplinary field; it draws upon a number of areas such as cognitive science, psychology, industrial design, human factors, human-computer interaction, usability, accessibility, information architecture, and more. While there are numerous universities that offer degrees and units in some of the individual areas listed above (I tutored a human-computer interaction unit at one of the universities), I can’t seem to find one that draws all the elements into one degree.

So I decided to draw on the collective wisdom of the twitterverse by putting the call out on twitter for HCI related degrees. I got a number of interesting responses, which I’ve summarised here.

University of Sydney

@smperris suggested the Interaction Design and Electronic Arts (IDEA). Graduate Certificate, Graduate Diploma and a Masters degree is available.

Read more about the Interaction Design and Electronic Arts program.

University of Queensland

@viller suggested the Bachelor of Multimedia Design and Master of Interaction Design at UQ. Both have a strong user-centred design and usability focus.

University of Technology Sydney

@pixel8ted noted that the University of Technology Sydney are willing to cater curriculum to your specific needs but you will need to approach them directly. There are also short courses available which you might be able to get something tailored to your needs.

Murdoch University

@londonjustin noted that Murdoch University in Perth offers a Human-Computer Interaction unit (unit ICT325) which can also be done externally.

RMIT

@oliveChi suggested RMIT in Melbourne and Open University.
Note: Can someone provide a direct link to the appropriate course? I tried searching for it but am probably not using the correct terminology.

University of Tasmania

@stokely noted that the University of Tasmania has an HCI campus. I had a look and came across the Human Interface Technology Lab Australia. There are HIT Lab courses such as Bachelor of Computing, Human Interface Technology (HIT) Major , which has some UX elements.

Australian National University

@LindaPostniece noted that the ANU College of Engineering & Computer Science does some research in HCI but doesn’t seem to cover much teaching.

Edited: the following information was added after the original post was written.

Charles Stuart University

Charles Stuart University offers a Master of Information Studies with a specialisation in Information Architecture.

Further resources

• Information architecture courses from around the world from the IA Institute
• IxDA has an education topic which lists all the discussions around finding courses, moving into this field, etc.

Comments? Additions?

Got any additional suggestions? Have you completed one of the degrees mentioned in this blog post, or are you currently completing it? I’m interested in hearing about your suggestions and experiences. Please comment below. :)

The Hive Gallery

This is an old favourite of mine. It features a tiny gallery space and lots of hand crafted goodness. On my visit there yesterday, I even spotted some jewellery pieces from Polli. There is an interesting range of books, porcelain pieces, handmade cards, and other independent art works.

Online at: www.thehivegallery.com.au
Find it at: 25 Lonsdale Street, Braddon ACT 2612 (See The Hive on google maps)
Phone: (02) 6257 9700

Unit Concepts

Unit Concepts is surprisingly large, with a huge range of homewares, designer furniture, novelties and other types of design icon pieces. Personal favourites are the range of Pantone items, inspired by the Pantone Colour charts. There is also some children items, bags and clothes.

Find it at: 28 Lonsdale Street, Braddon ACT 2612 (See Unit Concepts on google maps)
Phone: (02) 6230 0943

Also check out: Unit Concepts from Canberra’s got style for some imagery of the shop

Pocket Monster

Cute name, cute goods. Lots of gadgets and novelties such as cool ice cube trays, Minobot designer USB flash drives, t-shirts, and more.

Find it at: 28 Lonsdale Street, Braddon ACT 2612 (See Pocket Monster on google maps)
Phone: (02) 6230 6115

Also check out: Something for the Boys: Pocket Monster from Canberra’s got style for some imagery of the shop

Bourgeois Pig

A distinctly chic shop, this is a very long narrow shop filled with jewellery pieces, bags and some clothing.

Find it at: 28 Lonsdale Street, Braddon ACT 2612 (See Bourgeois Pig on google maps)
Phone: (02) 6262 8607

Also check out: Chick boutique: Bourgeois Pig from Canberra’s got style for some imagery of the shop

Gift Pod

This newly opened shop is situated right in the city and also carries a number of cool funky gifts, such as the Mattt bags, Pantone mugs, jewellery, kids toys and clothing, etc.

Online at: www.giftpod.com.au
Find it at: Ground Floor, Canberra Centre, Bunda Street, Canberra City ACT
Phone: (02) 6262 6968

Here’s a rundown of some of the presentations. Not every session is covered.

The evolution of the agile IA

Matthew Hodgson

Matt gave an entertaining talk about the evolution of IA and about applying agile principles to our IA work. Key takeaways included:

• Agile means breaking the project into smaller pieces
• Prioritise, Iterate, Reuse
• Flexible user-negotiated scope, everything else is fixed
• As IAs we must:

• Continue to evolve
• Steal what makes sense
• Adapt it & make it ours

See his presentation at prezi: The evolution of the agile IA

Guiding the way to living greener – how psychology helped IA for a new government website

Ben Crothers

Ben presented a case study about livinggreener.gov.au. He noted that people do not start and end with one task therefore we should employ motivational psychology where the design should cater for the motivations and situations of people using the site. We should lead people on a journey by capturing them at their point of need and using a ‘concierge’ interaction model.

View his presentation on slideshare: Guiding the way to living greener – how psychology helped IA for a new government website

Bringing them online: using design research to identify online opportunities

Patrick Kennedy and Alun Machin

Patrick and Alun presented a case study on the Super Racing site (soon to be released) and the techniques used on this project as well as the challenges faced. Techniques included secondary research (literature review and competitor review), use of Google trends, user research methods such as interviews and diary studies and more.

See their presentation on slideshare: Bringing them online: Using design research to identify online opportunities

Tears, tantrums and triumphs

Meghan Hayes and Ladan Wise

This was one of my favourite presentations. My work colleague Meghan and Ladan provided an entertaining look at the 18 months journey of consolidating 50 plus websites into one website and 40 plus intranet sites into one intranet. There were a lot of politics to deal with and the site managed to survive through a change in state Government direction. One of the key learnings was about providing visual stories to key decision makers, and having individual meetings prior to big group meetings to understand and address stakeholder concerns.

This presentation also had one of my favourite quotes – “I don’t believe in card sorting. That’s ok, it’s not a religion.”

See their presentation on slideshare: Tears, Tantrums and Triumphs OZIA 2009

Navigation models: efficiency versus user preference

David Humphreys

Dave presented the results of their research into different navigation models including:

• Single level vertical drop down menus
• Multi level horizontal fly-out menus
• Use of landing/index/navigation pages with in-page links
• Mega drop-down navigation menus

Looks like Dave has confirmed that fly-outs causes problems, particularly for older users and those without fine motor skills. Mega drop-downs can work but depends on the situation.

See Dave’s presentation on slideshare: Navigation Models: Efficiency versus user preference

We’re still too fluffy

Anthony Colfelt

Anthony’s key messages included embracing our inner salesperson so we can make a difference to the decision maker. He covered the idea adoption path, where the aim is to lead the business people along the path of Unaware, Aware but inactive, Aware and active, and the Decision (which includes incentives for the business).

Presentation available at slideshare: We’re still too fluffy

Spoilt for choice: which prototyping tool is right for you?

Suze Ingram

My colleague Suze took us on a whirlwind tour of a large number of prototyping tools, looking at factors such as cost, learning curve, ability to share projects etc. The ‘gold stars’ were awarded to Expression blend and Axure.

See her presentation on slideshare: Spoilt for choice. Which prototyping tool is right for you?

IA failures in social networking platforms

Andrew Boyd

Andrew took us on a tour of some of the major social networking platforms and some of the key IA problems. One example that stood out was the Events in Facebook – it’s extremely difficult to locate, particularly once you have created the events. Something I wasn’t aware was the little bar of icons on the bottom left of Facebook – one of the icons will lead you to the events! (When I checked my Facebook page, I couldn’t seem to see this – another indication of the IA failure of Facebook?).

See Andrew’s presentation on slideshare: IA Failures in Social Networking Platforms

The art of skywriting: the demise of the tag cloud

Gary Barber

Gary showed us the history of the tag cloud and its varied usage. He questions whether tag clouds are still worthwhile being included in interface design as there are still many people who don’t understand what they are. Tag clouds should really be about audience determination, navigational aid and to visualise semantic categorisation. He proposes that some of the challenges around tag clouds can be address through the use of index or button clouds and combined with search. He mentioned that there are still accessibility issues to be overcome.

See his presentation on slideshare: The Art of Skywriting – The Demise of the Tag Cloud

It’s not easy being green: challenges faced when designing software for the Army

Matt Fisher

This was one of my favourite presentations from the conference. Matt showed us the reality of designing systems for a military environment which presents a number of challenges and obstacles that we don’t often see in our day to day work. This included no access to the cloud, bandwidth issues, limited or no electricity, environmental factors (inhospitable environment), human fatigue, the trade off between security and usability and more. He provided an interesting discussion on low-cost disruption tolerant networks and their application to third/real-world problems.

Playing games with culture

Matt Moore

Matt ran an interactive session where we were introduced to the Organisational Culture Cards and Knowledge Management Methods Cards from Straits Knowledge.

IA tools for measuring cultural readiness for web 2.0

Matthew Hodgson

Matt presented his really interesting hybrid card sorting tool that he used on a recent project to determine the organisational readiness for incorporating web 2.0 tools as part of an intranet. You can download the cards from Web 2.0 cards (PDF).

See his presentation on slideshare: IA Tools For Measuring Cultural Readiness For Web 2.0 In The Enterprise

Huge data, little screen: using site search on mobile

Melissa Cooper

Melissa presented an interesting case study of ABC’s mobile version of The Big Diary. Key takeaways from her presentation included:

• Make options visible
• Support specific criteria
• Provide refinement
• Search feedback
• Support repeat users
• Major part of mobile design is deciding what to leave out

Check out her presentation on slideshare: Huge Data, Little Screen: Assisting Mobile Users Finding Information Quickly Using Site Search

I don’t know much about the web but I know what I like

Jonathan Cooper from the Art Gallery of NSW

Jonathan gave a very entertaining presentation on how principles and techniques used in art museum education can be applied to the web. Some of my favourite nuggets included:

• Coining of the word meantness – “meant to be”
• “Meantness is about unity. Websites need unity and consistency to allow visitors to build mental model.”
• “A mismatch can be more telling than a match”
• “When you have a certain amount of order, you can have a little bit of disorder and it still looks ok
• The use of framing to define art

He has written an article based on his presentation titled I don’t know much about the web but I know what I like

Not to prime is a crime

Jodie Moule

Jodie covered issues around gathering feedback including whether the setting in which user feedback is received is aligned with user’s mindset and whether usability testing focuses too much on left brain thinking. She discusses ‘priming’, which is about playing to both sides of the brain. Jodie demonstrated a technique that her company employs, which involves asking users to complete creative tasks during recruitment as it assists recruits tap into right-side brain. An example is the creation of collages to create a point of discussion during sessions.

These are a few of my favourite things

Rod Farmer and Oliver Weidlich

Rod’s and Oliver’s presentation really brought home the challenges of designing for mobile devices. There are many factors to consider including the device, platform, browser and the cost to the consumer when every KB counts. Other points included:

• Proliferation of platforms and screen sizes
• 40% of data traffic is iPhone/Smartphones
• We need to understand the ecosystem not just the UI – ecosystem includes manufacturers, devices, OS, networks, carriers, service providers
• Mobile behaviour – 15 mins per session. 1.2 sessions per day. 3-4 sticky products. 15s page loads
• Reduce no of options on page, bubble content to the top, keep IA very simple, define what your product does

Sharing information in an Augmented Reality environment

Rob Manson

Rob took us through a tour of how augmented reality can change our perception of space and collaboration. One of the new tools is the world’s first augmented reality browser layar, which unfortunately is only currently available for Android phones.

His presentation is available on slideshare: Sharing information in an Augmented Reality environment

Thanks!

Thanks to Eric Scheid for putting together an interesting conference, to the volunteers for the smooth running of the conference, and all of the presenters. Stand outs included the barista and fruit cocktail bar, Star City for understanding our geek needs (they ran powerboards to the tables so we could get access to power for our devices throughout the entire conference), the food and to Matt Balara for his excellent sketchnotes. Thanks also to the sponsors Happener, Rosenfeld, Ironclad Networks, Charles Sturt University, WIPA and the Information Architecture Institute.

Check out the twitter stream and the photos on flickr.

Updated 6 October 2009: I updated a few typos and links to presentations. Added a summary of Ben Crothers talk.

Updated 7 October 2009: Added a link to Ladan and Meghan’s presentation on slideshare.

In conjunction with the ACT Government and Queanbeyan City Council, Apple will be holding a community e-waste recycling event on Saturday 15th and Sunday 16th of August 2009, from 9am until 4pm.

Computers and other e-waste can be dropped off at:

• Mugga Lane Resource Management Centre, Mugga Lane, Symonston
• Mitchell Resource Management Centre, Flemington Road, Mitchell
• Park n’ Ride car park, corner of Cowlishaw and Anketell Streets, Greenway
• Waste Minimisation Centre, 5 Lorn Road, Queanbeyan

All householders and non-commercial organisations can take part by bringing their e-waste (computers, laptop, monitor, scanner, printer and computer-related, peripherals, TVs, video players, stereos and mobile phones) to the drop off locations.

Note that whitegoods, overhead projectors, damaged e-waste, contaminated equipment or other hazardous waste are not accepted through this recycling program.

For more information:

• Phone Canberra Connect on 13 22 81
• Visit www.tams.act.gov.au
• Visit www.apple.com.au/environment/recycling/program – more useful information through this link

My hubby and I will be visiting Melbourne next week as I will be getting laser eye surgery. To celebrate, we are attending Dracula’s on Saturday. We have also ended up with two spare tickets which Dracula’s will not refund.

Do you know anyone who might be interested in buying these two tickets?

The details of the dinner show are as follows:

• Date: Saturday 6th of June
• Time: 6.45pm until late
• Location: 100 Victoria Street, Carlton Victoria 3053
• Price: We paid $72/head but I’m more than happy to negotiate a really good price as I need to move these tickets – please make an offer!

The ticket price includes a 3 course meal, show and a ghost train ride.

Please contact me if you’re interested.

My presentation is titled From Apples to eye surgery: designing useful user experiences and you can catch it below:

PS: Apologies for not posting a bit more of an explanation about the presentation – I’m in a rush to pack for my Gold Coast holiday!